Transchronogenesis
by Dr. Abraxas
Summary: Kagome does not return and Souta is haunted by it. Driven by obsession he wants to reach across time to find his sister. When he finds that power will it be too horrifying to use? And jost how is this time travel possible anyway?
1. Chapter 1

A/N: At last I started a third and more or less final version of my latest fic. I have a few late night issues with it though:

First, the title. Transchronogenesis is not the most reader-friendly title but I can't think of anything else. Actually, for a time I considered calling it 'Kagome's Well' but...I donno...it hurts my head too much.

Second, the recipient of the letter. The 'story' is, in fact, a letter from Souta to his friend/colleague in the US. In the first and second versions this recipient was named 'Renkotsu' -- to draw parallels between this and another older fic -- but I changed my mind. I couldn't think of anything else so I named the recipient 'RD'. 

Aside from these late night issues there's something else I need to say. I must give credit to **alterfano**; in my fic Souta is haunted by something that happens to Kagome in the well and that is an idea I am borrowing from one of her fics.

* * *

"Transchronogenesis" by Abraxas (07-06-08)

Dear RD:

This letter is an abuse of our friendship. And for that – for what will be revealed – I know I cannot be forgiven. Even the manner of my writing and mailing this document, to take advantage of the fact you are now too far away to interfere, is part of the offense guilt forces me to perpetrate.

You cannot stop me, RD, know that I arranged it to be so and do not blame yourself for anything. I alone am destined to suffer. You, despite the evidence of my confession, are absolved.

Are you surprised by this language?

I am taken by it. I am a neurologist, a scientist; objectivism is the staple of my livelihood. Yet I speak of sin and damnation like your Christian missionaries!

Since I learned of my power I have been terrified that I have been allowed to live these years. And since I exercised my power I – RD, if it were madness – I have been horrified at what I unleashed into the world. Truly it is so because somewhere within, somewhere my trained experimental eye cannot penetrate, I wonder if I crossed into realms reserved only for the gods.

We are given but one body, one lifetime. We understand we are bound by these limits. To rebel against mortality is to war with Nature.

For the past twenty years I studied the mind. I probed its secrets as intently as a madman consumed by obsession. And for a personal reason though what that motivation was I hid from everybody including Dr. Muso. You do not share my love for the art so I must be careful how I explain it. We – rather, what we call ourselves – is the by-product of the biology of neurons. Our personality, how we feel, how we react at any given moment, is a consequence of choices. Choices we make; choices others make. Memory itself is simply a record of those choices annotated by outcomes and experiences.

Now the question is: what about death?

If consciousness is a side effect of biology then when the organism is extinguished the self is lost. Yes, the self is like the heat of the body, neither endure beyond death. It is bleak is it not? From the study of the mind _that_ is what the world knows to be true and if mankind is to retain its sanity then that is how it remains.

Understand there is a way around death. What I uncovered, my power, is a method wherein the mind can be preserved. Yet this ability must be lost and forgotten. People, if the advance of science startles them, they will be repulsed by it. For to be a success it requires a vampirism of the highest order.

Perhaps then what I am to do by my confession is a service because irrespective of the consequences the knowledge is destined to follow me into doom. It is too late for me. Since twenty years, no, since childhood I have been prepared for this moment. It was not my wish for it to be this way but it is the only way I know to accomplish that act.

When I was ten my life suffered a void that nothing of this world can fill. I have not spoken of my childhood because of that event that haunts it. And there is another aspect of those times that defies the ability to be believed. The whole thing, all of it, was a source of shame for my family. So much so that we tried to forget the past but I could not.

My friend, I must be believed. What I intend to convey with this letter, from the first to the last word, it must be believed to be true. If you do not believe it then what a madman you will think of me!

When my sister was fifteen years old she fell into a well within our family compound. As you know our home sits upon the site of a temple. There is throughout an assortment of sacred and ceremonial buildings. The well itself was housed under a hut that my family avoided. Though I do not recall where that fear originated.

Kagome fell into a well and vanished. She returned a few days later acting as if she had been living a nightmare. A dream set in Feudal Japan, populated by villagers and demons and jewels. It resembled a fantasy and we dismissed it as a kind of 'Wizard of Oz' moment. Then no sooner did she return and it became very clear indeed that it was not imagined.

Another creature emerged through the well: a half-demon entity named Inuyasha.

RD! Where did I find the strength to write those words upon these papers?

Inuyasha was real. As real as anything else of this world. And I admired him but –

I will not bother you with the rest of the details. I cannot expect you to understand it. All right. Deny it if you must. Pretend all of this only existed in my sister's head and that I, a boy of eight, succumbed to hysteria. Your diagnosis would not be unsound as literature is replete with similar, well-documented cases. I ask that you take our years of friendship into account and that you trust me.

For the next two years Kagome alternated her time between us in the present and Inuyasha in another, parallel life in the past, five hundred years ago. Throughout those two years grandfather and I protected her from the suspicions of her friends and the eyes of the authorities. We invented excuses to cover her absences. We contrived a plot to gain her home schooling. Thus she would be at peace when away.

My mother was supportive. Although I do not believe she knew of the extent of our machinations. She trusted us and Kagome and Inuyasha. Her patience with the situation verged upon saintly.

One day I walked my sister into the well hut. I watched her descend. With my lantern I gazed into that abyss. She reached the wet, rocky bottom and in an instant vapors as thick as fog issued from the walls of the orifice. Amid the whirlpool of smoke I saw a snake-like object; it coursed through the vapors. My sister, whose image was fading, saw that object and screamed. It was a scream I have not heard before or since – it was inhuman.

Then the effect vanished and the well was empty.

I told no body and that, I think, was my original sin.

I was certain it was nothing. Then I was certain my sister would have fought it off. Then I was certain Inuyasha would have heard it and saved Kagome. So, you see, I waited confident that everything would be all right.

We waited yet Kagome did not return.

She was reported missing. What could we do? What could we say? She was reported missing and her loss broke my family. My grandfather fell into depression. My mother blamed herself. I was felt alone and useless. Nothing after was said about Inuyasha and her adventures in Feudal Japan. And as the years passed the wait became unbearable so much so that every last trace of her was expunged within the family.

For a while I fell into that trap of denial. Yes, it was easier to pretend it did not happen than to explain to any body the history I outlined. But the idea of time travel and mystic power awoke in me a curiosity that could not be suppressed. I investigated the Feudal Era and the Warring-States Period; I searched for certain, specific events Kagome related to us. Always, however, what could be uncovered was inconclusive. I also wondered about demons like Inuyasha – if they still existed – but the fact that we were not visited by anything that could have known Kagome lead me to believe they, like my sister, were now only part of the past.

My endeavors were only diversionary. My life was a mess. I lacked focus and direction. You cannot imagine the frustration. I knew what I wanted to do, to find my sister, I did not know how it could be achieved.

My impression, my hypothesis, was that the key to the mystery involved gaining the power to operate the well. And the well, it worked for my sister because of her innate mental ability. If we assume we are equal and endowed with the same exact abilities then might I not find that power within me and exercise it?

I was fortunate that Dr. Hojo and later Dr. Muso came into my life. They gave me the motivation and support I needed to pursue my academic career. And they were very helpful to me as I probed into the mind and, though the extent they did not know, I could not have tested my hypothesis and uncovered my power without them.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I divided the story into four parts to make it easier to edit. Honestly, I had no idea how enormous this thing would be. It seems like it will be 6000 words. Anyway, here's more stuff I need to say:

Here my debt to Alter States is apparent. This (and the start of the next section) involve mind experiments with animals; toward the end of the next section Souta does something to a human being. Dr. Muso -- clearly an allusion to Naraku -- he's there to make you wonder: ultimately will this be a success or a tragedy? It seems he's enabled Souta's corruption. The nature of the story is such that certain aspects will not have an answer so you'll have to draw your own conclusions. I like it that way; it gives things an air of mystery.

Also, what is this papaver business? A long time ago I attempted a Thundercats/Inuyasha crossover and it actually bears certain parallels to this fic. In that failed crossover the main character discovers an alternate reality buried within his own mind. He used the extract of papaver to induce trances while in an isolation chamber. Papaver is a reference to poppies; in this story it's described as an extract related to opium that's sanctioned by the university for experiments. Opium, of course, has a long, infamous history in the horror genre.

* * *

It should be obvious now the source of my obsession. Parallel to the motivation was the acceptance of a certain, queer intuition. Embers of it had been stoked when Inuyasha and the well came into my life. It flared through all of the years since Kagome vanished. I said my family was supportive of my sister's endeavors. I said I wondered if demons existed in our modern times then I rejected the possibility offhand. Why were there things so? It was the sense that we, our whole entire family, we did not belong into the time we were born. 

It was natural for my sister to travel across time and of course Inuyasha and his kin did not survive, they did not belong here any more than we belong here.

Can it be that I always knew of this destiny? To think that this could have happened already! Indeed, how ancient is my power?

The idea that history might have been circumvented since antiquity and the fact that I cannot remember anything beyond _me_ freezes my blood because it hints of total and absolute failure. The point of the exercise is to preserve the pattern of my mind. But if my memory is destroyed then everything will be in vain.

There is evidence to show failure will be averted and to that fragment of hope I cling.

Yes, RD, evidence!

The urge to experiment was overwhelming. Only years of training induced the discipline required to investigate systematically. If it was a mental power then what part of the brain was responsible? How could it be focused, controlled? These things had to be dissected.

At the University of Tokyo I was a graduate student of Dr. Muso. The laboratory we shared became like another home. The man himself was mentor, guardian and father – there were times I looked at him like I looked at Inuyasha. It was a relief to be with him – no – I cannot describe it succinctly and unless you lived with a grandfather waiting for death and a mother retreating into another world you cannot understand the rock of stability that was my Dr. Muso.

With guidance, in time, the isolation tank and the mind-altering papaver became the focus of my research. Because of the trust between us I was given a wing of the laboratory: the first, smaller room was the control room, the second, larger room contained the tank. There, in the day, I worked on my thesis with the usual array of subjects. At night I was allowed to explore my other, personal interest but I could not be alone so either Dr. Muso or Dr. Hojo watched within the control room.

You have not seen the tank. From outside it is a very terrifying object. From inside the mood is magnified by the darkness and wetness.

With a suit full of sensors I lay upon the waters. An injection of papaver induced the trance. My aim was to gauge if the mind could be forced to perceive the past. To recreate the effect, if not the reality, of Kagome's well.

Let me add that the object of the experiment was not theoretically unfounded. As you yourself espoused, the passage of time is an illusion. And as I myself added, it is an illusion _created_ by consciousness. Time does not have a direction; past, present and future exist simultaneously. The basis of my private thesis was that by altering the mind ultimate awareness of time could be reached.

Imagine it – to access realms of being more fundamental that the side effect of biology.

I realized that to access that other world my mind had to be dismantled. Only then, when I was free of the chains of the senses, was I pure enough to reach beyond outside of myself.

The prospect of that disintegration horrified me so I approached it with caution. Of course the trials had to be short due to the excessive physical toll suffered while isolated and influenced by papaver.

Progress was slow but after a year I gained such experience that I required fewer and lesser doses of the narcotic to induce the trance. Dr. Muso commented and I agreed that in time I would not need the extract any more. Which was remarkable because papaver, the extract of opium, ordinarily led into dependency.

Dr. Muso's remark made me wonder if papaver was not, in fact, a kind of placebo. So while I weaned off it I worked on a method to balance between letting go of myself and keeping enough of my consciousness intact that there could be a memory of the experience. I was in the middle of this pursuit when there occurred an event that shifted the focus of my research completely.

One night, due to a schedule conflict among the staff, Dr. Muso and Dr. Hojo were forced to keep a dog in the control room until its master returned. When the experiment began the dog was asleep but along the way it awoke, paced about the tank and barked. Yet within the chamber, under the trance, I did not hear the dog, I felt its mind.

I was part of the great beyond thus I felt it. I felt it just as you feel your arms and legs and sense your existence. So it was. A real, physical object and through will alone I found the power to manipulate it.

Without my knowing I had opened a portal not large enough to pass through into oblivion but just wide enough that it was possible to contact entities I perceived to be nearby.

Curious about the discovery I probed the mind. Though I sensed the working of the network of neurons I could not penetrate into the thoughts of that other being. Yet the dog must have noticed: when the experiment ended Dr. Hojo said the dog behaved oddly, sitting silent and still, looking at the tank until the moment I awoke.

Although tangential it was a breakthrough. I wanted to know how far it could be taken. I obtained two female rats. One I taught a simple trick: to arrange coins by size. The other I kept isolated in a cage in my lab.

Under the trance I probed the minds of the rats. At first I felt them only if I knew their locations. As time passed I became attuned and found a way to search for minds nearby. Bodies, anything physical yet not innately self-aware, proved to be a problem without a solution.

The caged rat was impregnated though artificial insemination. After a matter of days, when I probed it, I felt voids. No, I call them voids understand they were not voids. If a mind felt solid then voids, _protominds_, felt clay-like. They could be molded and I concluded it was so because the network of neurons were not complete.

Day by day, with rapidity, the networks formed but before the transformation was complete I preformed a very unusual experiment.

Now do not mistake me. Under the trance my perception of the world is _inhuman_. And because it cannot be translated into the five senses of the body it defies description. When I say I felt and sensed I mean what I knew, somehow, someway, I was aware. Thus, I felt the minds, I sensed the presence of the rats.

What I wanted to know was if a mind could be moved. If the mind had an existence, a reality, independent of the body. If it could be moved into another point in space or time or into another body.

The mind of the free rat by the tank – I willed it toward the mind of the caged rat. There was a sharp, insurmountable resistance I was not yet prepared for. So I focused upon the voids. I pushed the mind of the free rat into a void. There was a resistance as the fluid-like protomind parted and enveloped the fully formed mind.

Similarly, I willed a protomind free of the fetus that contained it. I attempted to place it into the body of the free rat by the tank. There I paused. The free rat – I could not find it anymore. I forgot I could not sense mindless objects. When I removed its mind, I lost track of its position and now, with that formless, undeveloped consciousness in the grip of my will I realized I could not find the fetus it came from.

I awoke screaming.

Out of the chamber, still dripping wet, I ran into the control room and checked the caged rat. It was as bloated as ever but not it appeared to be agitated. It was concerned with a part of its stomach that it would not let me touch. Still cold and naked I crawled back beside the isolation chamber. I could not bear to look at it but it had to be checked. I needed to know what became of the free rat.

It was dead, RD.

When I moved its mind and crammed it into the fetus, its body expired.

Dr. Hojo was confused; Dr. Muso merely nodded and disposed of the body. Meanwhile I thought about what happened.

What of the infusion? The fetus and adult minds. Did they merge into one, new consciousness? Did the incompleteness of the first mean the second replaced it entirely? What about the void I removed from the second fetus? What became of it? Could it persist like a ghost or would it diffuse out of existence?

The implications so upset me I could not return to the laboratory for weeks.

Thankfully, though my superiors knew nothing about my true intentions, Dr. Hojo and Dr. Muso coaxed me back into the routine of my research.

The caged rat gave birth. One of the offspring was dead. No doubt it was the cause of its agitation. But how to be sure if the experiment was a success? Of the remaining litter – which one?

The survivors were nurtured by its mother. Then, when they were adolescents, I tested them. One by one I presented the rats with the three coins. Exactly one of them understood it and preformed the trick as it had been taught.

My friend, can you believe it? I transferred a mind from one body to another. The rat that learned the trick, it did not die, it continued to live in another body. But there was an unforeseen difficulty. After a month in its new body it died. I needed to know if the stress of body switching was the culprit or if there was an aspect of transferring itself that was unstable.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I donno, I feel I could have done better with this idea. There's still one more section, though, with any luck it will be a good ending. This fic has to be creepy, not scary necessarily, but definitely creepy.

Souta's seeing things even out of the isolation chamber but he learns to control it. A human becomes a subject of an experiment. Souta's obsession becomes so all-consuming that one wonders, even if he succeeds, can he be satisfied? That's part of the story, too, being careful what you wish for and all of that.

* * *

To be sure I understood the phenomenon I required a variation of the experiment. I needed to eliminate birth in case that instability I noted was due to aspects of development. Therefore the next trial involved rats of the same age; it would be an adult to adult rather than an adult to fetus transfer. 

Again, one rat was taught the trick and one rat was isolated.

The difficulty involved my inability to locate bodies once minds had been removed. After several minor experiments I settled upon a rather trivial solution. I found it was possible to re-locate an object if it physically touched me within the tank. Under the trance enough of my consciousness remained that I was able to detect the object by tough alone.

I placed the free rat into a cage and placed that atop my chest while inside the tank. The isolated rat was kept outside the tank. I tasted the extract of papaver and shut my eyes. At once flashes consumed me and I was in tune with the harmonies of the universe.

Under the trance you do not sense yourself immediately. You are forced to remember yourself, what it feels like to be you, to be reformed. Remembering how to breathe produces images of your chest. The thought of arms and legs induces the rest of the body. Other objects, even living objects, come across as sterile; only minds posses a uniqueness that cannot be duplicated. There is substance that can be shaped, altered. There is texture that probed yields tantalizing clues of machinations within. And there is heat that acts as a signature of identity.

Minds, physically near or far, can be detected through the remnants of their heat. Echoes of feelings can be felt. Fragments of experiences can be re-lived. All of that and more extreme revelations were opened to me while altered.

I felt the free rat in the tank. I sensed the caged rat out of the tank. I paused, cautiously, knowing I had to be careful. I pushed away the mind of the educated rat. Already its body was fading. I shoved that mind into the mind of the isolated rat while simultaneously I took its mind away. Thus I switched minds instantly. And that was important. While I could re-locate the free rat's body, I could not find, again, the body of the caged rat if it was without a mind for any period of time.

Then I placed the isolated rat's mind into the educated rat's body and the experiment concluded.

I let myself awaken naturally but the effect of the papaver was yet too strong – I needed both Dr. Hojo and Dr. Muso's help to escape the chamber. Papaver, that derivative of opium, was tolerated by the university's neural and psychological studies department only for research. Although I did not develop a dependency, prolonged use had definite physiological effects.

On the ride back I knew I was awake, I knew all of the extract escaped my system yet I was still under the influence of the trance. As such I became aware of the minds of my friends and of the consciousness of others along the streets. I felt parts of the world that shocked me into silence; the flood of emotions and images across time overwhelmed my senses.

Sitting, facing the window, I noted a light superimposed above the sky. No – horror beyond horror – what had I done to my mind? In the tank these things, these after-effects had been masked. Now everything was fully in view. No, RD, the light was not just above the sky it was above my bedroom, it was above me. Everywhere, forever, dimensions that should be hidden from my eyes were open and, at the end, I was not prepared to gaze so deeply into the nature of the Universe. Like a coward I hid under the mattress. I felt safe within the shadow and darkness.

I stayed covered I do not know how long. Until morning? Noon? Eventually the effect dulled and I was whole again. Normal. It was then that I wondered if I went too far. And I cursed at the luck that almost granted me my innermost wish.

Then, then, I calmed and gathered my thoughts. I had to be sane. Yes, I was gifted with a power but I only stumbled upon it by accident and I vaguely understood how it could be controlled. I knew how to induce the trance, it was the rapid calming effect of papaver that brought about that state, it could be reproduced by meditation. Perhaps through the ancient, Buddhist arts the power could be harnessed?

Those were the thoughts that coursed through my head. And amid that triumph of will fate dealt me a blow. Mother and I found grandfather unconscious. It was Alzheimer's. I should have seen it coming. I was too caught up by my work, too entangled by that obsession, to notice how thoroughly my family decayed.

Against my mother's wishes I called an ambulance and transported my grandfather to a hospital. I could not be bothered with my research. Rather I stayed with the old man alone for days. Except that day when my vigil was interrupted by Dr. Hojo. Dr. Muso sent him to see me though we he, too, did not come escaped me at the moment. Maybe he wanted a friend nearer my age to be with me. I must say the relief was welcome; it became a mix of fortunate and unfortunate circumstance. For you see, my friend, Dr. Hojo informed me about many things including the result of my experiment and, almost off-handedly, that his wife was pregnant.

While with grandfather that night I calmed myself into a trance. I knew his was the warmth beside me. I reached toward it. And I reached outward. I expanded my awareness. I felt the minds of those within the hospital. I found an echo of a warmth that seemed to be familiar and I trailed it as it snaked amid a swarm of a million other entities.

When the trail stopped I felt another mind and a void. A protomind. Convinced that it was Dr. Hojo and Eri – his wife – I performed the first real act of damnation. Before there was confirmation of the results, before there was further study into the possibilities, _I acted_.

It seemed like a dream –

Lights brightened and alarms jolted me out of the trance. Nurses rushed into the room. Residents followed and examined my grandfather. He was dead. The body expired.

Can you not see it?

I could not stand to face my mother so I sneaked into the laboratory. I felt so lost and hopeless. It was as if all I worked for had been destroyed. I needed to be re-assured. But who could I talk to_? Confess to_? Who but you, here and now decades removed from the fact?

I became a scientist to achieve a goal. Along the way I uncovered a power. A power strange and unusual yet tangential. I spent years refining it. And to what end? I lacked the ability to do anything for my sister. I felt I lost my way to Kagome. My friend, it was the darkest hour – but amid the ruins of my life I forced myself to continue.

I examined the rats. They were normal and healthy. All in all, they endured full, product lives until they expired quite naturally. This was the success Dr. Hojo remarked. But what he did not know was the other side of the success: for now the isolated rat knew the trick and the free rat did not.

I suffered a new long wait.

I visited Dr. Hojo at the hospital when Eri gave birth. It was a boy and by all external tests he seemed to be healthy. But the doctors noted an issue and I, expert of neuroscience, agreed: the infant's mind was deformed. The scans of the brain revealed tissue scarred and malformed in a manner along the lines of Alzheimer's.

I watched the child's development over years. The damage did not worsen and, in fact, healed slightly. The difficulty with learning and remembering and the periods of confusion lessened with time and care but cannot be averted. It will take years if not decades to rehabilitate the boy into anything resembling normal.

RD, the experiment worked, my grandfather lived though it was not the outcome I envisioned. I thought the fetus's protomind would be such that my grandfather's mind would be able to regenerate healthy physical structures. But the transfer of the mind was complete, complete and perfect, his same, exact network of neurons. _The ravaging of Alzheimer's was intact._

Despite everything, though, I gave him a new lease of life. Yet, because of it, he was denied to me. What ever emerged through birth and endured through therapy it would not be, it could not be, my grandfather anymore. The memories of the past would be like a fantasy and dismissed.

RD, can you not see it, the awfulness of my action?

But I found hope!


	4. Chapter 4

It took me forever to finish this! Sorry for the delay. Anyway, I hope it's all suitably disturbing :)

* * *

While visiting Dr. Hojo we talked about our families and the mystery of our ancestors. He showed me a portion of his family tree. The document was damaged but the names were legible. Yes, the name of the ancestor was Kagome.

Kagome!

The marriage of Akitoki and Kagome occurred five hundred years ago, during the Warring States period, that era my sister visited at the other side of the well. Dr. Hojo, who I suspected loved my sister, saw only a passing if not interesting connection. I drew an altogether different conclusion: clearly, powers beyond comprehension, as if to lure me deeper into self-annihilation, showed me at last a link into the past.

What ever ability Kagome possessed that operated the well the secret was hers. I could not duplicate it. Rather, my endeavor unlocked another pathway out of the constraints of the world. Already I restated your point that time is illusion. Now I take it a step further: realms of past and future are as definite, as real, as concrete as what we believe to be the present. Those places that were or will be can be reached. Indeed, it is a simple matter to traverse across the farthest reaches of time and space.

Like web work, chains of cause and effect link all of our minds through the dawn of humanity. No! Beyond humanity. To the beasts. To the atoms. To creation itself. Inheritance unbroken.

From echoes I can reform that chain of descendance thus I can extend my consciousness backward.

Think of it, RD, the mind as the vehicle for time travel!

Upon experiment I sensed the past but I could not penetrate it completely. Much was denied to me – thoughts and images were surreal and incoherent – I believed that was to preserve the causality of the universe. Nevertheless I wanted to know and, consumed by the mania, I found another excuse to exert my power.

It was important since I had not answered the question about how the mind is affected by birth.

I pause. Patience! This confession is almost ended.

The way we lost Kagome affected me but the impact upon my mother was extreme. People, so many people, from grandfather to Kagome, _they left_ and she verged on joining them. She withdrew from the world and to be honest, when I entered the university, I withdrew from her. We lived together without communication.

After my grandfather – she spent days alone by the well. Perhaps she thought there was a way to unlock its secrets. Eventually that phase passed and her left degenerated into darkness and shadow. It was compounded by a fear of me that I had not known before. Could it be that she knew of my sins?

One night I watched her creep into the bathroom. Usually by herself she sobbed but that night was different. The sounds were low and muffled as if deliberately to be unnoticed. I lingered by the door, listening and waiting, while the activity lessened and lessened. Then, certain she was not awake, I broke into the chamber.

I found my mother by the tub, fully clothed, one arm upon her lap, one arm along the tub. Scarred and bloody flesh served silent witness to what had been attempted. She was weak but alive. I could have sworn she mumbled 'not again' as she paled and stared aghast.

Panicking, I clutched her wrists and sat by her through the night.

I awoke dazed. My mother's cold, hard hand was clasped onto mine. Scabs of blood linked us together. I stood, shocked at the realization, I stumbled out of the bathroom. I could not weep, I thought only of the things that had to be done, the scene, the evidence, I called Dr. Muso –

RD, if this life failed and could not be endured?

But I fool no one.

Perhaps, due to the events of that night, I found myself concerned with the minutia of time travel. If a person were to transfer their mind to an adult then they would be stuck, for lack of a better word, with the trappings of that body. Its health and status. And they would be forced to deal with leading that life. That cannot be an optimum use of the power. But if a person were to transfer their mind to a fetus then they would be free but there would be aspects of life beyond their control from gestation to childhood.

Gestation should be akin to isolation since the senses of the unborn are incomplete. My experience with the subject may be my sustainer. Childhood will be another matter entirely. But, if prepared then this can be endured.

Yet born the danger is not passed. The pre-existing mental patterns would be housed in a new and untested brain and body free of networks – a blank slate as it were. There would be no competition to crowd-out what there used to be but what if that very malleability is enough to alter those patterns? Might one, in time, recall anything from the past? Might one recognize those thoughts and images as memory or dismiss it as dream? Suppress that past and replace it by a truly new and unique life. One must be strong to resist the decay.

I wonder, though, if a process similar to my power is the way of _natural_ reincarnation?

So – if the former identity endures then one can cheat death.

The was when I recalled a feeling I knew since childhood. That these were not my times. It is possible that all of this already happened. Not advanced technology, not even papaver, was required to unlock the power. Only concentration was needed. Isolation and mediation. Imagine, then, that a being of the past stumbled upon the power and used it to extend life. To transfer the mind into another body. Generation after generation. Observing history and gaining knowledge. Maybe, as it grew at last tired of the world, that being attempted a mental suicide to forget what it knew and as a by-product of that process I came into being. But because so much experience had been gained the power could not be forgotten.

I wonder – would I have gained the insight without the tragedy of Kagome?

I am damned, my friend, I know it. This is vampirism. It cannot be denied. And I cannot bear the thought of the power that consumes yet preserves me.

Dr. Hojo announced the birth of another boy and that second baby was healthy. I could not see it. I waited, rather, I watched from afar. For years – a decade.

I bided the time researching and learning. Tracing Dr. Hojo's family. Discovering how people survived through the Feudal Ages. Their arts and crafts even their language. My goal was live as if those were my times. The temple was my laboratory where I practiced – it had been closed since grandfather, its only regular visitors were you, with your students, Dr. Hojo, with his pictures of his family and Dr. Muso, with his knowledge about the past.

Along with those new interests I resurrected old endeavors. The bottom of the well became my tank. There, alone within the abyss, I waved the threads of the past and reached through that web work. Guided by the lineage of Dr. Hojo I was confident of the time and place required for the operation.

Ten years into the plan I visited Dr. Hojo. You understand why I avoided the family. Especially that younger, healthier son. I could not risk –

I snuck into a room where the boy watched TV. I whispered 'mother'. The youngster turned and looked at me. I saw the glimmer of recognition. _He knew what he was_. The child ran away. Later, Dr. Hojo told me that the boy cried into the evening and could not explain that reaction or that phrase, 'it can't be true', which he wailed until he was sedated.

There, RD, is the whole, entire story. Now you know why the news you hear about me will be my death. My passing is destined to reach you before my confession. And now you know that while my body may be dead my mind yet lives.

I will venture into the past and become a cousin of my friend's ancestor. He was a monk. If the worst comes to pass then the monastery should be enough to remind me of the temple. And that should be enough to revive my dormant, repressed past.

I go away to be with my sister, my fellow time traveler, watch her and save her and, were the universe so benevolent, redeem myself.

My grandfather was broken. My mother was not prepared. But not I. I am ready and I go willingly with the experience to survive the process.

When I began my crimes were memories. As I end the next abomination of Nature is yet to be. The power haunts me and I cannot escape it. I am destined to wander this world forever, my friend, you alone know it. Good-bye, RD.

END


End file.
